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Ola Electric shares ride data to say overspeeding caused accident, slammed

On April 15, a man named Balwant Singh tweeted that his son met with an accident in Guwahati due to a fault in the Ola electric scooter that he was riding.
A person riding an Ola electric scooter
A person riding an Ola electric scooter
Written by:
TNM Staff

After a man purportedly met with an accident due to a fault in the Ola electric scooter that he was riding in Guwahati, the ride-hailing major has claimed that as per its own investigation, the rider was overspeeding. The statement by the firm issued on Friday, April 22, however, has drawn flak from various quarters, with many accusing the company of collecting data without consent and violating the right to privacy. A man, Balwant Singh from Guwahati, had tweeted on April 15 that his son had met with an accident "due to fault in regenerative braking where on a speed breaker, instead of slowing, the scooter accelerated, sending so much torque that he had an accident."

The tweet thread went viral on social media. Ola Electric said it did a thorough investigation of the accident and the "data clearly shows that the rider was overspeeding throughout the night and that he braked in panic, thereby losing control of the vehicle. There was nothing wrong with the vehicle." The accident happened on March 26 when Singh's son was driving an Ola S1 Pro. According to Singh’s tweet, the scooter went airborne before crashing, and that his son was hospitalised on March 26 with a fracture in his left hand and 16 stitches on his right.

In response to Singh’s tweet, Ola Electric posted data received from the e-scooter in real time, which showed that the vehicle’s speed on the night of the accident was between 95 kmph and 115 kmph. "Road safety is of paramount importance to us. We strongly recommend everyone to ride responsibly, adhere to speed limits and ensure you're wearing a helmet," Ola said. However, in releasing a detailed graph of the speeds at which the vehicle was travelling, many pointed out that Ola Electric was tracking customer data, and alleged that it could be a violation of privacy.

Taking to Twitter, Nikhil Pahwa of Medianama said that the statement was remarkably poorly thought out by Ola Electric. “It seems that they've taken not just the right to track customers but also publicly disclose data about customer behaviour. If they haven't taken these rights in their privacy policy then this is a violation of privacy,” he said.

“This disclosure basically tells customers that Ola doesn't just track you. It also reserves the right to publish data about your riding behaviour and share it with the world. Essentially, they're doxxing customers, and can do this to anyone. In terms of pure optics, how stupid is Ola's communication/decision making team? Targeting a customer in public? Who does this? This doesn't come across as a thought through decision, but a panicky, knee jerk reaction,” he added.

He further said, “If they wanted to disclose that the customer was speeding at the time that the accident happened, what's the rationale behind disclosing that the customer was speeding prior to that as well? That's basically a means to attack the customer's character.”

Others also highlighted the same issue.

With IANS inputs

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